Monday, 28 July 2014

Straight Edge, it goes deeper than tattoos.

My date stood me up, and being a flirty, sociable kind of girl I gotchatting to some men. This pub is my local, it’s a spit and sawdust, young pubwith bands on a Saturday, no garish lights and no obligation to dress like a footballer’swife. My local now feels different now I never drink, I follow a set of verysimple rules, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs and I don’t sleeparound, when I say I’m teetotal I mean it, there’s no excuse in my mind to everdrink. The lads are chatty and friendly, I feel like a cross between a littlekid and mum nursing my J2O and listening to people repeat themselves, the pintsare flowing and then garish shots, and I miss my old drug of choice a little.

We end up in the garden where the drink keeps flowing, wine, beer shotsthat look like the revolting “cocktails” I remember making as a child with milkshakes, squash and the contents of the kitchen cupboards. I’m offered them, Ihave to keep saying “no”. The cocktail shots appeal to the same childish impulsethat drove us to eat sour sweets called things like “brain bender” and they godown like poisonous sherbet dips.

The thing I like about my old drug is people talk, booze puts a mask onpeople yet again takes it off again and then you can get to the roots of people.Now this is where people’s lives unravel in front of you. A young lad who lookslike a mischievous rave pixie starts talking, he is the ring leader, the onebuying the shots with the biggest mask but the persona drops and the storyunfolds. The rave pixie tells me about his dad who did drugs daily, hegrew weed never hid the fact, now I realise Straightedge is a privilege.

Kids whose parents have positive attitudes to drugs are more likely tohave positive attitudes to them according to the Rountree surveys. Parentsdrinking and getting stoned gives them a positive attitude to getting off theirfaces, parents are their kids biggest moral guide. Straightedge may feel like achoice for many and for me it’s been a positive one but for many how can it bea choice, if the watch a parent have a negative emotion then block it out withbooze how will they know how to cope with life, if they've seen a parent pull abong, or snort some powder it’s no longer shocking, if a child pulls their mumshair out of the toilet they may well feel frightened and disgusted by this butit becomes normal. Some research disputes this common sense and points out thatparental attachment is also a big factor, lack of attachment means you are morelikely to fill the hole in your soul with pills, powder or smoke, a magicpotion that replaces love. “The wrong crowd” is also a huge influence, if yourkids know adults who indulge they are more likely to do drugs.

It’s a month until one of the biggest anniversary of my life comesaround, the day I left my pet drug addict/alcoholic, he is also the father ofmy children. That day I left chaos, I left starving for someone else's choicesand I gave my kids, I left a ball of addiction who I used to love. I gave mykids a privilege. I showed them drugs and are bad, that you can leave someonefor behaving badly. With massive help from my family I got out of a cycle.

So when another middle class kid smugly tells you how good they aremaybe they just got lucky, they had a stable background, they attached to theirmother so the choice came easily. My journey, I have holes in my soul that havehelped me make the wrong choices, but I have privilege on my side too. It tookme a drug addict boyfriend, a life on a poor estate. I find ways to fill thathole in my soul with exercise, meditation, art and writing fill those holes andwatching my kids suffer to go straight, really straight edge. Some may nevermake it, maybe they’re not weak but unlucky.